HWY-024: Riposte by Buke and Gase (CD version)

$12.00

Note: For an overview of Buke & Gase stuff available from the storelook here.

Riposte is the debut album of the instrument-building, genre-defying duo Buke & Gase. Their music is loud yet folky, polyrhythmic yet melodic. DustedMagazine.com called them part of a tradition where "the avant-garde, the handcrafted, the anti-authoritarian" overlap -- yet they have have received unbelievable amounts of love & support from the classical music community and press outlets like NPR (Tiny Desk Concert, All Things Considered, several best of the year lists) and The New York Times. The best of both worlds, Buke & Gase are spiky and accessible.

If instant gratification is more your speed you can hear a track from the album right here:

"It doesn't happen very often that we find out about an emerging rock band that is absolutely mind blowing, both on record and live. BUKE & GASE is such a band." -- Deli Magazine

Brooklyn-based BUKE (byook) & GASE (gace) are Arone Dyer on the "buke" (a self-modified six-string former baritone ukulele) and Aron Sanchez on the "gass" (a guitar-bass hybrid of his own creation). Both of them play double duty, also mobilizing a small army of foot percussion. These instruments are then filtered through various pedals, amplifiers and homemade inventions to create a surprisingly complex sound. Dyer's supermelodic vocal lines weave through the beautiful yet unwieldy musical matter, balancing light and dark, calamity and control. Their musical multi-tasking makes for live shows that are visually unexpected and sonically explosive.

In 2009, Brassland co-founders Aaron & Bryce Dessner of The National (well, technically, their sister) discovered BUKE & GASE when they played Sycamore, the basement venue down the street from The National's home studio in Ditmas Park, Brooklyn. They were blown away by how much noise and rhythm was emerging from this two-piece band.

Dyer and Sanchez had formerly been bandmates in the post-punk noise group Hominid who, after touring with The Fall in 2004, fell to their demise and disbanded. Sanchez went on to form Proton Proton (which opened for Deerhoof and Les Savy Fav) and Dyer took a three-year musical hiatus and became obsessed with racing her bicycle as a form of masochistic entertainment.

In 2007, pining for a new direction, the two regrouped. After much alchemizing they discovered their nascent sound while tinkering with their distinctive homemade gear: a bass drum with an integral snare drum and tambourine, ankle-played bells, toe-bourine, a cameo-ing homemade bulbul tarang and, of course, the eponymous buke and gass. For the geekly inclined: the buke and the gass both have multiple audio outputs that either go to their respective amps or are managed by various audio mixers, distortion boxes, and pitch shifters. (NOTE: no loop pedals are used, every sound is made live.)